amendment to the Constitution. The Sixteenth or Income Tax Amendment was
proposed by Congress to the legislatures of the several states in 1909
and took effect, having been ratified by three-fourths of the states, in
1913. Declared by its sponsors at the outset to be intended merely as a
recourse in case of emergency, the tax authorized by the amendment was
at once put into operation and there seems to be little likelihood that
it will ever be abandoned.

Without the constitutional amendment no general income tax would be
practicable. And yet the amendment conferred no new power of taxation on
the National Government. To explain this seeming paradox it will be
necessary to consider briefly the scope and limitations of the federal
taxing power.

One of the chief defects, perhaps the most vital defect of all, in the
Confederation which carried through the Revolutionary War and preceded
the Union, was its inability to raise revenue directly by taxation. The
Confederation was obliged to call upon the several states to furnish
their respective contributions or quotas, and requisitions upon the
states encountered delays and sometimes were ignored altogether. There
were no effective means of compulsion.

With these facts before them the founders of the Union determined that
the new government should not be wrecked upon this rock at any rate, and
therefore insisted, against great opposition, in conferring upon it
powers of taxation which were practically unlimited in their reach. The
Constitution was made to provide that[1]

the Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes,
duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for